Dear Tourist

You get a lot of flack coming here. You don’t know how to drive in the Rotary. You do not realize you are driving the wrong way up Main Street until you are faced with a Duck Boat ready to crush your Prius. You order your Sundae with sprinkles. We have to teach you how to pronounce Quahog and how properly eat a lobstah. Cape drivers honk at you when you stop to take in the view of the marsh.

You are blamed when we cannot even think of leaving the Cape on a Sunday or try to get back on a Friday. You are the reason we cannot go to Market Basket on our day off. There are some of you think Route 6a and the Service Road are a practice track for the Monte Carlo, barely missing joggers or bikers practicing for the PanMass Challenge.

You stare in disbelief when you realize that kids are jumping from bridges just because their friends are. You wonder if Cape Cod parents missed the meeting when you learn the phrase: “just because your friend jumps off a bridge doesn’t mean you have to”.

In truth, Dear Tourist, you are valued. Yes, we might complain about how it takes 4 minutes longer to go down 28 if there is a raindrop in the sky. But without you there would not be shopkeepers on Main Street. The Cape would not have the diversity of restaurants and pubs. Our high school and college kids would not have summer jobs waiting tables and packing grocery bags. Our not-a-chain hotels, B&Bs and motels would not be filled to capacity allowing innkeepers to provide much needed tax dollars and summer jobs. We would not have our summer friends that rent the beach cottage allowing a local family to afford the property taxes.

The money you spend in our town is needed and appreciated. Spending your vacation with us allows our children meet new friends from around the country and the globe. You are the reason we get to enjoy bonfires on the beach in the summer and have quality schools in the off-season. Your visits allow our family-run small-businesses to be sustained year after year. It is because of you we are able to retain the small-town feel and community that is the Cape. Thank you, dear tourist, for all you do for us.

On Monday our family will stand on the Exit 4 overpass and wave goodbye to you. Just as we waved hello on Memorial Day. Make sure you honk and wave back. It will make the 4 hours you are spend trying to drive the 8 miles to the Bridge more enjoyable.

Thank you, Dear Tourist, for visiting our little piece of sand. It was wonderful to have you.

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12 thoughts on “Dear Tourist”

This was funny. My family vacations on the Cape every few years and I’ve totally been that tourist. Ish. I haven’t driven the WRONG way in the rotary, but your rotaries do scare the crap out of me and I’m sure the locals don’t want to get behind me when I’m driving through one.

HAHAHA I have a friend that when she visits with her family she will drive all the way to the bridge, pull to the breakdown lane and make her husband drive around the rotary! Just don’t order your ice cream with Jimmies and you should be safe!

Blegh. Jimmies/sprinkles whatever you call them are NASTY. I had to negotiate a particularly gnarly rotary in Orleans which you HAD to go through to get from the house we were staying in to.. Anywhere else. Not fun, but I’m still here to tell the tale.

Haha – loved this! I totally get the love-hate relationship with tourists…however, I don’t consider myself a Cape tourist since we’ve been there so often, although I’ll admit I will never get used to those rotaries! 😃

So true. I remember standing on the overpass whey year with a big sign saying goodbye to the tourists. This year I spent most of the summer on the Cape after a few years of only being there and visiting family in the winter. Being there in summer brought it all back. The love-hate relationship is there for sure…especially fighting that traffic.

So true. I remember standing on the overpass whey year with a big sign saying goodbye to the tourists. This year I spent most of the summer on the Cape after a few years of only being there and visiting family in the winter. Being there in summer brought it all back. The love-hate relationship is there for sure…especially fighting that traffic.

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